Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1887-02-02
AFTER TWENTY YEARS.
CONTRAST BETWEEN NEW YORK
M THE sos AND THE '7o's.
Prentice Milford Tells OF His Surprises
in the Metropolis After a Score OF
Years in tho Gold Fields of California.
Things Better and Things Worse.
rspccIal correspondence.A

Especial correspondence
NEW York, Jan. 24.-In 1856 / left New
York city as a foremost hand, and a very
poor one at that, in a first class clipper bound
via Cape Horn for San Francisco. / did not
sec New York again until 1871 and had heard
nothing whatever OF the changes occurring
during my absence. When l did return /
looked for the New York of 1856, and could
not find it. put up at a hotel near tho city
hall. When night came was surprised to
End a sort of graveyard quietness beginning
all about. In 1855 all the theatres were in
that part of the city. Wallack's old theatre
1.-THE STAR was there, then the farthest
uptown, Union square was then the
limit OF a Broadway promenade. All the
| principal retail stores were below the square.
| Stewards down town store they called it
"Stewarts palace" them wa the fashionable
shopping center, Burton's theatre on Cham
bers street, the Broadway, the National and
Barnum's museum were all within five min
/ utes' walk OF each other. That section was
chen the nucleus OF Now York as its nucleus
of theatres, fashionable hotels and the most
| approved places for paying high prices for
| things Is now between Union square and
| Forty-second street.
/ was two days in New York before I found
where the hub Of the town had gone. l was
as tho stranger in a'strange land. The cur
rency was new. Oyster stews had gone up
from a SHILLING" to twenty cents. Shillings
and ssixpencesp had disappeared altogether.
| Drinks had been raised from three and six to
tenandf fifteen cents. But the quality Of the liq-
| uor had not always been raised with the price.
| Worse than all did the bobtail car bother me.
I had never seen such a thing before. / did
not know where to put my money or how to
make change with the driver, and in my ig-
noranle stuffed a ten-cent shinplaster in the
cars contribution box, thinking, or rather
hoping, that in some mysterious way the con-
Germ might make change for me on its own
hook. After I had so put it in before sundry
amused passengers ! knew I had made a
blunder, and left the car, long, ere, I reached
my destination to avoid their silent ridicule.
I bad not then the moral courage to face my
own ignorance. 2
In 1857 the oyster saloon gave you a cur.
tanned stall all to yourself, instead Of masaing
its tables all in one room, thereby subjecting
; you to In. sialies CT ;sssseeshl neighhos
with your fry. IN
The manger system of feeding had not
then come into fashion. The oysters Of that
era were better because they were not then
SO long subjected to the artificial torrid heat
day in and day out Of the present saloon,
which ruins a certain freshness that, cannot
even be maintained on Ice The oyster sa.
loon OF that time hung ont as a sign e red
balloon, into which d candle was thrust a.
Right
Photographs were then called .daguerreo.
types Houses over six stories high were
unknown. There was still good snipe shoot.
ing on the Hoboken marshes. Divorced
wives were curiosities. A clergyman who